But according to the president of the Jersey City Board of Education the school district is prohibited from leasing property and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark isn't interested in selling the vacant church.

The parking lot and play area at School 27, on Kennedy Boulevard and North Street, is dotted with roughly a dozen trailers because the school can't hold the 1,200 students that attend there, Assemblyman Sean Connors said.

School 28, on Hancock Avenue near South Street, has approximately 1,100 students and has four trailers as classrooms.

His solution is work out a deal with the Archdiocese of Newark and the St. Anne's parish, for space in the St. Anne's School, which closed in June. The school is located at Kennedy Boulevard and Congress Street, just a block away from School 27.

"We cannot in good conscience sit idly by and allow our public school students to be educated in substandard classroom trailers when we have a vacant school within blocks of Public Schools 27 and 28 that is fully equipped and ready to accommodate the learning needs of Jersey City children," Connors said in a statement.

But according to BOE President Sue Mack, the school district is prohibited from leasing any property by regulations imposed by the state Schools Development Authority, and the archdiocese isn't interested in selling St. Anne's.

Asked about the Infinity Institute, a school for gifted students housed in a facility the district rents from the archdiocese at $400,000 annually, Mack called that "an Epps deal," referring to former superintendent Charles T. Epps Jr.